


Traveling to Las Vegas

by clare_dragonfly



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Apocalypse, Gen, Wasteland
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-11
Updated: 2011-08-11
Packaged: 2017-10-22 13:01:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clare_dragonfly/pseuds/clare_dragonfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reid tries to get to his mom after the apocalypse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Traveling to Las Vegas

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in my original world of the Wasteland. His name would not be Spencer Reid there, because they speak a different language, but this was a special request!

Spencer Reid unrolled himself from his sleeping bag and stared up at the sky. It hadn’t changed. Still gray, from horizon to horizon.

But that was a good thing, because if the clouds had moved, that would mean wind, and wind would mean pathogens from the cities he’d left behind. Being able to calculate all the possible trajectories of the genetically engineered viruses didn’t help his anxiety.

But Vegas would be safe. Nothing could take root there. Once he crossed the mountains, there should be nothing windborne following him. It wasn’t his first or even his second reason for aiming for Las Vegas—those would be his mother and the Hoover dam, respectively—but it was still pretty high on the list.

Trying not to groan as he stretched cramped muscles (he didn’t see anyone else around, but just because he couldn’t see them didn’t mean they weren’t there), he sat up as far as he could and then opened the car door. From there he was able to climb out and stretch properly. He was much too tall to be sleeping in the back of a Prius, but his only other option was sleeping outside, and that was far from safe.

He walked around, popped the trunk, and took out a protein bar and water bottle for his breakfast. Chewing on the bar, he walked around to the driver’s seat and started the car up. There was no reason to waste time, nothing to do on this empty stretch of road but go.

Not too many cars were left drivable these days, not to mention the shortage of gasoline, but there were advantages to sticking it out in the nation’s capital, assuming you survived. Vehicles and fuel had been stockpiled in Quantico, and while he had only been able to take so much fuel, it was enough to get him to Vegas. He hoped.

This part of the country wasn’t as demolished as other parts—mostly because there was very little to demolish. The highway through the desert was dotted with gas stations and strip malls at intervals along its length, most of those abandoned and some of them falling apart now, but no large centers of population or important military installations.

He didn’t want to think about what that meant for Vegas. But he would come to that when he got there.

For now, he got some calories into his body, kept a careful eye on his fuel gauge, and kept driving.

—

He had to abandon the car, unluckily enough, in the mountains. If only he’d gotten past the highest point, he would have tried to coast, but he wasn’t even close enough to push it to a point where he could do so. Instead, he packed his food and water into a pair of deep messenger bags (he’d tried to prepare for every contingency) and walked.

Without the mobile armor that the car provided, he felt a lot more exposed—and, he now realized, if anyone’s attention had been drawn to that mark of prosperity, they were certainly watching him now. At least he still had guns. Two on his hips, where the weight was familiar and comforting, and one hidden on his right leg, where it just reminded him of the man who’d once carried it, and his last, urgent request.

That request was exactly why Spencer was doggedly marching along now, despite the heat and the tears that threatened behind his eyes at those memories. If he was going to survive, if he was going to find his mom, he couldn’t afford to stop. And that meant he couldn’t afford to think about Hotch and the rest of the team, or anything that had happened in DC in the last few months.

After a few more steps, he unholstered his revolver and held it loosely in his hand, ready to aim and fire if needed. Keeping it safely held helped to occupy his brain circuits, and having it out helped calm the constant prickle between his shoulder blades.

The sun was sinking ahead of him as the road under his feet finally began to slope downward. At the same time, he spied a caved-in section to his left, off the road, and veered toward it in relief. He didn’t want to stop while he was still on the baking asphalt, but he could really use a break. He slumped down on a pile of broken rocks, not caring that they, too, had soaked up the heat. They were still cooler than the highway. He pulled out a half-empty bottle of water and chugged the rest of it, closing his eyes with relief.

When he lowered the now-empty bottle, there was someone staring at him.

He scrambled to reach the gun he’d set down on a rock beside him, but he wasn’t fast enough. As soon as he started to move, the other person had lifted a rifle and was pointing it toward him. “Don’t move,” came the warning, muffled by a scarf over most of his attacker’s face.

“All right,” said Reid, leaning back slowly and raising his hands to show they were empty except for the water bottle. “There’s no need for violence. I’m not here to hurt anyone.” As he spoke, he was quickly studying the other person. He—or she—was so covered in layers that it was impossible to tell much, except that presumably he had figured out some protection against the desert heat. The burqa-style clothing would have made him think “female” except that any Muslim woman willing to make her religion obvious in her clothing was dead, at least in this part of the world. Besides, the bare hands and the small bits of face that were visible were pale. A hood covered the hair, and the scarf and a pair of large (and undoubtedly practical) sunglasses covered the rest of the face.

“What is your business here?” demanded the rifle wielder.

“I’m just trying to get to Las Vegas,” he said, keeping his voice steady and calm. “I grew up there.”

“Go back where you came from. We don’t have room for anyone else.”

“I can’t. There’s nothing out there for hundreds of miles. I’ll run out of food and water before then.”

“How’d you get here?”

“I had a car, but I ran out of gas.”

The cloth-draped figure looked out and emitted a series of piercing whistles. Spencer did his best not to jump. Then the sunglasses were pointed towards him again for several minutes, until another whistle emerged from the rocks. Spencer resisted his urge to look around for its source. He didn’t want to make this person any more suspicious than he already was.

“Why did you drive through the desert if you were low on gas?”

Spencer took a deep breath. “Vegas is more likely to survive than a lot of other places. And my mom lives there. I can’t abandon her.”

“Prove it.”

“How can I—”

“I know the names of all the people still alive in the city. If she’s not on the list, either you’re lying or there’s nothing here for you.”

Spencer swallowed against a suddenly dry throat. He was coming up against this last hurdle a lot sooner than he’d anticipated. He’d tried not to think about it, but of course that was close to impossible. Obviously, not very many people had survived in the city. Was there any reason to think that his mother, an academic in a mental institution, would be one of them?

But he had to try. “Her name is Dr. Diana Reid. She is, or was, a patient at Bennington Hospital.”

His attacker lowered his gun.

Spencer felt almost dizzy with relief. He barely moved as he—no, she, as he could see now—pulled her scarf down off her face and shouted up into the rocks, “Hey, Jake! He’s legit! I’m going to take him in!”

“Thank you,” Spencer whispered, the loudest he could manage to speak. “Thank you.”

The woman jerked her chin toward his gun. “Pick it up and holster it. Only guards can have weapons, but carrying two, we might just take you on as a guard. Unless you have some other useful skills, and let me tell you, you damn well better have useful skills.”

Spencer did as he was told, then got unsteadily to his feet. “I have PhDs in mathematics, chemistry, and engineering. The bachelor’s degrees in psychology, sociology, and philosophy might not be as useful, but I’m sure I can find some way to be useful to this community without having to shoot anyone.”

The woman smirked as she lead the way back to the road. “Okay then. Of course, you realize if I take you to Dr. Reid and she doesn’t recognize you, I’m still going to have to shoot you.”

Spencer smiled bitterly. “That’s okay. If she doesn’t recognize me, I think I’ll be happy to be shot.”


End file.
